


Deep in the Temple of Reflection...

by ElridAlm



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Zirca
Genre: Elrid (Zirca), F/F, Non-Lewd, Shizuen, Wholesome, Zirca - Freeform, Zirca 2036
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:46:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29288538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElridAlm/pseuds/ElridAlm
Summary: The life of a Lorekeeper is a daunting one, full of trials and hardship. So really, who can blame Shizuen when she decides to skip on some of her duties for a bit of a breather? Deep in the Temple of Reflection, there's not a soul to be found, not... usually, anyways.
Kudos: 7





	Deep in the Temple of Reflection...

’’Drip. Drip. Drip.’’

The sounds of dripping water echoed throughout the lower halls of the temple, the faded and weathered stone walls catching all sound and reflecting it for corridors on end. Dim torchlight illuminated the faded textures on the walls: murals depicting the history of Zirca, the origins of the Lorekeepers, and the tale of the legendary Pokemon that had saved Zirca in ages past.  
It was a shame, that few could still appreciate those murals.  
As Lorekeepr Shizuen paced through the corridors, a faint memory flickered through her mind, an inherited recollection of an experience not her own, from a Lorekeeper long past. The decision to close off the older parts of the temple to all but the most senior staff. Years of weathering and age had taken their tolls on the walls, and one could not simply have any person walk in and have the run of the place, the entire place would be fall apart, and a vital cultural treasure would be lost.  
Or, at least, that was the excuse. In truth: Shizuen knew she could probably kick any of those walls at full force, and the only thing broken would be her leg. The Temple of Reflection was made of strong stuff, it had been there for thousands of years, and would undoubtedly be there for thousands more. No, the temple itself was structurally sound. Yet what lay deep beneath, in the centre of it all, -that- was what needed protection.

The guardian deity itself: Lustrorious.

‘’Well joke's on them…’’ Shizuen giggled to herself, or rather, to something near her. ‘’Nobody knows you haven’t been there in ages~’’  
A response came in the form of a rumbling inside her robes. A Lorekeeper could still be a trainer, and much like any professional trainer, she always kept a full team with her, safely stored within their Pokeballs. Though, unlike most trainers, one of those Pokeballs was… special. Not just in the way it looked more overtly fancy than the others, but also in what it contained.  
‘’Relaaaax…’’ she replied, gently patting her side until the rumbling ceased. ‘’I’m not taking you back, just… needed to get away from it all for a bit, okay?’’

The Lorekeeper came to a halt, pausing to stare at one of the murals, admiring the depiction of the guardian deity painted upon it. Nowhere near as awe-inspiring as the real thing, but then no doubt the person that had painted it wasn’t the most artistically gifted.  
Shizuen frowned. Unless of course, -she- had painted it? Searching her memories, she tried to find proof one way or another. That was always the difficulty of being a Lorekeeper. Each of them held onto thousands of years of memories: countless lifetimes of experiences, portioned off and granted to each successive member. Proof that they had been ‘’chosen’’ by Lustrorious, to be their caretaker, guardian, companion.  
It was also, mildly put: a massive pain in the ass. A normal person would’ve gone insane within days, but for a Lorekeeper, it did mean having to sift through memories that weren’t always your own, to sort out which experiences belonged to you, and which belonged to someone that had died a full century before you were born. Lives lived, battles fought…  
‘’…and so many fucking ceremonies…’’ Shizuen muttered.  
Maybe that was why she had found herself less enthused over her role, than so many that had come before her. Fact was, after doing the same job for thousands of years, one was bound to be sick of it. Religious ceremonies, political meetings, public outings. A Lorekeeper was arguably the busiest person in Zirca, the religious figurehead of the entire country; constantly obliged to serve the whims of the entire region, when they weren’t busy babysitting a massive mirror hydra.  
The rumbling returned, more annoyed than before.  
‘’Oh shush.’’ Shizuen sighed. ‘’You know I love you.’’

Still, she couldn’t deny it. She was tired. She had been born tired, and though maturity had let her hide it better, she was more exhausted than she had ever been in her life. As a kid, she could remember taking any chance she got to slip away from her duties, to run off exploring the wilderness, chasing poachers, or battling ‘’him’’.  
And sure, the temple staff never much cared for that behaviour. It was unbecoming of a Lorekeeper they would say. It was uncouth, inelegant, why couldn’t she be more like her predecessor-yadda yadda. But it wasn’t like they could ever stop her. Heck, half the time all she really needed was to borrow a ditto from that nerd, make sure it copied her well enough, and she’d have the day to herself! She beamed at the memory. Her memory, her experiences, not that of someone else, forced on her by circumstances of birth.  
Still, she couldn’t deny she had matured since then. These days she only skipped out on the particularly boring parts of her duties, and even then only once in a blue moon. Also, she had gotten her own ditto. Progress!

And really, that was why she was there, pacing through those abandoned corridors. Anything was better than listening to a bunch of crusty old men yammer on about scheduling changes while she nodded along and pretended to listen. At least this way, she could have some time to herself, as alone as she could get, where nobody else would find her. 

She felt something tug at the back of her robe, and a soft high-pitched voice followed.  
‘’Excuse me…’’

Shizuen practically jumped out of her skin, twisting around only to hear a ‘’thump’’ as her robes smacked right into whatever had been behind her, then a ‘’thud’’ as that something hit the ground. Looking down at the source of a sound, her eyes went wide at the sight of a brown-haired little girl, couldn’t have been more than ten years old, having been awkwardly thrown to the floor.

‘’Owww… what the fuck lady?’’ the kid whined, rubbing her butt. It had not been a soft landing. 

‘’Who are you?’’ Shizuen glared. ‘’You aren’t supposed to be here. Where did you come from?’’ 

‘’Was with… the tour group…’’ the kid winced as she stood up. As she did, Shizuen noticed the little girl was holding onto a toy, a weird blocky pink and blue thing, with large lifeless eyes. Was kinda creepy. 

‘’Of course…’’ the Lorekeeper sighed, rubbing her forehead. Fucking tourists… ‘’Ancient order tasked with safeguarding the protector of Zirca, and security can’t even keep a kid out…’’ she muttered to herself.

‘’You’re mean!’’ the kid grumbled. ‘’I’m telling my parents!’’

Shizuen paused for a moment, taking a moment to properly absorb the situation. Really? This kid was trespassing in one of the most tightly protected parts of the region, and she was complaining about someone being -mean- to her? 

‘’Kid, do you even know where you are?’’ the Lorekeeper asked. 

The girl awkwardly looked around herself. ‘’The temple? Duh?’’

‘’Well you’re not wrong…’’

‘’Was just looking for a place to sit!’’ the girl sulked. ‘’My feet hurt, and the tour was boring…’’

Shizuen did her best not to laugh at that. The tours were notoriously boring. Really, nobody at the temple liked giving them, and tourists were a pain in the ass to deal with. If it wasn’t the obnoxious parents taking flash photos of everything and treating the place like a zoo, it was the teenagers littering all over the place, and snot-nosed kids running around WHERE THEY WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE. Still, the gift-shop made for a much needed revenue source, someone had to keep the lights on. The actual lights, not the torches. 

‘’Can’t disagree with you there…’’ Shizuen agreed. ‘’But you really shouldn’t be here, c’mon, let’s take you ba-‘’

‘’No!’’ the kid protested. ‘’Now my butt hurts too, I don’t wanna go anywhere!’’

‘’Suit yourself~’’ Shizuen shrugged. ‘’I’ll send a cleaning crew by to get your body after the Yamasks are done with you~’’ 

‘’Th-the Yamasks!?’’ The kid trembled. ‘’Wh-what?’’

Shizuen grinned viciously. ‘’Oh yeah, real nasty lot. They find cute little kids like you and eat your faces, reaaaal nasty lot. It’s why we keep this placed closed off!’’  
It was a lie, of course. There hadn’t been any incident of Yamask face-eating in decades. They had cleaned those Pokemon out of the temple around the same time the tours began. Annoying as tourists were, dead ones wouldn’t make the place come off too favourably on review sites. Still, she couldn’t say for sure whether or not Pokemon were lurking in the lower parts of the temple, and that was just another reason the kid couldn’t be there.

Unfortunately, the kid seemed to have frozen in place, stiff with fear. 

‘’I-I’m not scared of them…’’ the little girl lied, her voice trembling. 

‘’I’m sure you’re not.’’

‘’Y-yeah, Malware here can take them!’’ the kid hugged her toy even tighter to her chest.

‘’I’m sure he… can?’’ Shizuen was starting to feel bad. Maybe she was getting softer with age, but scaring a little girl just wasn’t cracking up to be that much fun. 

‘’B-besides, they’ll probably go for you first! You’re old and wrinkly and stuff!’’

Nevermind then. 

‘’I’m twenty you little brat!’’ Shizuen hissed. She hugged herself, feeling a little self-conscious. Fuck, leave it to a kid to make her feel ancient. 

‘’That’s old! That’s twice as old as me! You’re dumb -and- old.’’

Shizuen threw her hands up. She was done. ‘’Okay, you know what? I’m outta here. Enjoy the face-eating kid, I’ll see you around!’’

She turned around, ready to leave. Sure, leaving the girl alone wasn’t the smartest thing she could do, but it wasn’t like the kid could get in that much trouble, and there wasn’t anything in the corridors but murals. All of the -really- dangerous places were locked up, anyways, and-  
A rumbling in her robes interrupted her.  
‘’Oh c’mon!’’ she complained under her breath. ‘’She’s a pain!’’  
The rumbling continued.  
‘’Do I have to!?’’

‘’Who are you talking to?’’ the girl asked.

‘’Nobody important.’’

The rumbling ceased. Then suddenly, Shizuen felt the overly fancy Pokeball inside her robes shift and slam into her side, knocking the breath out of her.  
‘’Ow! Fine! You win!’’  
She stood up briskly, turning back to face the girl with a fake smile.  
‘’Hi, sorry. So little girl, let’s get you back to your family and we ca-‘’

‘’My name is-‘’ the girl interrupted.

‘’I don’t care~’’ Shizuen interrupted in turn. ‘’Let’s just get you back to your family, and we can forget this ever happened, okay?~’’

‘’No.’’ the kid replied flatly.

‘’Excuse me?’’

‘’No.’’ the kid repeated, and just like that, dropped to the floor, crossing her legs, refusing to move. 

‘’C’mon kid, you can’t stay here.’’ Shizuen sighed. 

‘’Well, I’m not going with -you-!’’ 

Shaking her head, Shizuen walked up to the kid, taking a seat right next to her. ‘’Fine then, guess neither of us is leaving.’’ she stated, matter-of-factly.

‘’Fine.’’ The kid replied, scooting just a few inches away. Ensuring Shizuen knew she wasn’t liked.

And there they sat. Both of them. In silence. Little more than the crackling of the torches and the sound of dripping water in the temple to keep them company, a minute passed, then two, then more, as Shizuen began to wonder if it might’ve been best if she had just stayed for that stupid scheduling discussion; sure, it would’ve been about as interesting as watching paint dry, but then at least she wouldn’t have to play impromptu babysitter to some spoiled tourist kid.

‘’So what’s the point of this place?’’ the kid broke the silence.

‘’Hmm?’’

‘’Like, why do you have a big temple in the middle of nowhere?’’

‘’Jeez, weren’t you paying attention during the tour?’’ 

‘’No, my feet hurt, and it was boring.’’ 

Shizuen sighed, and pointed to the wall across from them, another mural of Lustrorious. ‘’That’s why.’’ She explained. ‘’This temple is meant to be the resting place of the guardian deity Lustrorious, protector of Zirca.’’

‘’Deity?’’ the kid asked, not entirely convinced of what it meant.

‘’Means god.’’

‘’Huh…’’ the girl squinted, staring at the mural. For a few moments, she seemed lost in thought. ‘’Kind of a dumb looking god. You actually worship him?’’

‘’Something like that…’’ Shizuen smiled, ignoring the faint angry rumblings in her robe. Yet, as she continued, her voice became more melancholy. ‘’He saved the region from a massive threat a long time ago. We owe him a lot.’’

‘’So that’s why you wear the stupid horn?’’ the kid smarmed, ruining the mood.

‘’Hey, it’s not stupid!’’ 

‘’You ever stab anyone with it?’’

‘’What?!’’

‘’Just sayin’-‘’ the kid noted, pointing to Shizuen’s headdress. ‘’You could probably heatbutt someone real bad with that thing.’’

Shizen couldn’t help but let out a giggle. For some reason, she found that funny. ‘’Yeah, I guess you could. Would piss off a lot of people though, it’s expensive. Part of Lustrorious. Sorta.’’

The girl nodded. ‘’So is he like, dead?’’

The Lorekeeper shook her head. ‘’Not… exactly. Legendaries don’t die, I don’t think. He’s in the temple.’’

A few seconds passed.

‘’Can I see him?’’ the kid asked.

‘’Nope~’’ Shizuen replied, a bit too happily. ‘’Nobody is allowed to see him. It’s not a good idea to bother gods, you know?’’

‘’Then how do you know he’s not dead?’’ the little girl retorted.

‘’I’m -pretty- sure of it~’’ Shizuen beamed, unconsciously patting her robe. 

‘’Maybe the Yamasks ate his face?’’

Shizuen’s robes rumbled with annoyance. 

‘’Nah, he’s pretty strong. Doubt a Yamask could beat him.’’

‘’Oh… well, Malware can probably beat him! He’s super strong!’’ 

Shizuen rolled her eyes. ‘’No offense kid, but I don’t think your toy cou-‘’ the toy turned it’s head to look at her. ‘’-what the fuck?’’

‘’He’s not a toy, look!’’ the kid lifted the thing in her arms to Shizuen’s face.  
Much to her abject horror, she could tell it was actually moving, if ever so slightly, staring at her with those dead empty eyes, unblinking, unwavering. -That- was a Pokemon!? If it was, it wasn’t like anything Shizuen had ever seen before. Every Pokemon normally had something like an aura, a sense of life to it. This… thing, whatever it had, she couldn’t deny that it was alive, but something about it felt wrong, unnatural, it was like a bicycle made of meat, the stuff it was formed out of didn’t seem like the stuff that should be there. 

‘’Man, you tourists have some weird pets…’’ the Lorekeeper muttered, more than a bit put off.

‘’I downloaded him off the internet!’’ the kid beamed, explaining in a tone of voice that was supposedly meant to indicate that what she had said was somehow a completely normal statement. ‘’He’s a Porygon, he’s super strong!’’

‘’I uh… he seems nice?’’ Shizuen noted, nervously.

‘’He blew up an entire arena when I battled with him!’’ the girl grinned. Then her grin faded, she looked down at her Pokemon, more sullen than before. ‘’…I got in trouble for it though…’’

Shizuen didn’t doubt it, and that just made her more concerned. ‘’Well, that’s kinda how battles go?’’ 

‘’Yeah but -apparently- I was supposed to keep him in a ball.’’

Shizuen felt a pang of alarm go over her. Was this kid actually carrying around some weird high-tech -wild- Pokemon in her temple? ‘’Wait, so he’s not-‘’

‘’Mom and dad made me put him in one now, but he doesn’t like staying in it!’’

Shizuen’s robes buzzed with kindred rumbling. Mood.

‘’Yeah, I uh… I have Pokemon like that too.’’ The Lorekeeper sighed. 

‘’But the league people were really mad about it, they said I can’t battle anymore, took away my trainer card… said I can’t have it anymore.’’ the girl continued. She seemed to have withdrawn, it clearly wasn’t a pleasant memory for her.

‘’Dang.’’ Shizuen stared at the girl in sympathy. No trainer card meant one couldn’t participate in anything League related. No tournaments, no gym challenge, no Elite Four. For anyone who had any aspirations of being a trainer, that was a crippling blow.  
Still, it seemed a slight extreme. Kids using wild Pokemon they had befriended in battles wasn’t anything new, just how destructive had that weird Porygon thing been to merit that sort of expulsion.  
She placed a hand on the little girls shoulders. ‘’Sorry you went through that, kid. That really sucks.’’

‘’There were just jealous of how awesome Malware is…’’ the kid grumbled. Her sadness had turned to annoyance, and Shizuen couldn’t quite blame her. 

‘’I’m sure. He does look pretty cool.’’ She stated, feeling a bit bad for the kid. Sure, she was kind of a pain, but she didn’t seem all that bad. ‘’Wish my Pokemon were as cool as he is.’’  
She flinched as she realized what she had just said, expecting the ornate ball in her robes to react rather unhappily to a statement like that. Strangely, it didn’t. It made her smile. It seemed like even gods could have a bit of empathy at times.  
‘’Eh, don’t worry about it too much kid.’’ Shizuen reassured. ‘’If it helps, the league sucks anyways. I know a guy that’s really serious about it, and he’s like, the biggest nerd.’’

The girl sniffed, looking at Shizuen with large wet puppy-dog eyes. ‘’Really?’’

Shizuen nodded gently, smiling. ‘’Yeah, you’re too good for them anyways. They were probably just scared you’d beat them all too easily. With your weir-erm. With your awesome Pokemon.’’

The kid gave off a sad smile, nodding, hugging her freakish aberration of a Pokemon even tighter to her chest. ‘’Yeah, they’re just haters!’’ 

They both stared at one another for a few moments more, only for the kid to suddenly avert her gaze, looking down at the floor. 

‘’I think…’’ she began. ‘’I think I wanna go back now.’’

The Lorekeeper nodded, pulling herself off the floor, holding down a hand for the girl to help her up. It was accepted, though as the little girl stood up, her grip on Shizuen’s hand tightened. 

‘’Um… c-could you maybe show me the way out?’’ the kid asked, shivering lightly. That comment about Yamask’s hadn’t quite been forgotten. 

‘’No worries kid~’’ Shizuen smiled, much more genuinely than before.

‘’And uh… you won’t tell my parents I wandered off, right? They probably didn’t notice I was gone, but…’’ 

The Lorekeeper waved a hand, dismissively. ‘’No worries. Anyone asks, you just got a private tour, okay?’’

‘’Okay…’’

‘’But it can be our secret~ Heck, I’m not supposed to be here either!’’

The girl tilted her head to the side, inquisitively. ‘’No?’’

‘’Nah, was supposed to be in a meeting, but I had a friend cover for me. C’mon, I’ll tell you on the way!’’ 

Hand in hand, they both began to walk back towards the upper levels of the temple, leaving the old corridors behind them.  
‘’So…’’ Shizuen began. ‘’Do you know about a Pokemon named ‘Ditto’?’’

**Author's Note:**

> Wholesome little slice of life thing for my good friend Twaq! Not particularly lewd, but then, it's fun to just have some character interactions from time to time. Happy birthday mate, you've been a damn good friend, and this was a blast to write!


End file.
